ATU graduates over 4,000 students

The Accra Technical University has graduated over 4,000 students across various disciplines over the weekend in a very colourful ceremony.

In all, a total of 222 Bachelor of Technology (B-Tech) and 4,080 Higher National Diploma (HND) Students graduated, comprising the 2016 and 2017 batch from the Schools of Engineering, Applied Sciences and Arts and Business and Management Studies.

In the B-Tech category, 7.2 per cent of the 222 graduands had 2st Class; 55.9 per cent had 2nd Class Upper; 35.1 per cent had 2nd Class Lower with 1.8 per cent going home with passes.

Of the 4,080 HND graduates 1. 26 per cent had 1st Class; 22.8 per cent had 2nd Class Upper; 62. 2 per cent had Second Class Lower and 12.6 per cent had Passes.

Mrs Ursula Owusu Ekuful, the Minister of Communications who represented the President outlined the President’s vision for technical and vocational education.

She said government is working to bring all Technical and Vocational Institutions under the Ministry of Education to ensure the efficiency of the Technical and Vocational Education (TVET).

According to her, the Ministry of Education would assess the standardisation, resource mobilisation and regulation in order to ensure that technical and vocational education become the number one choice of the youth.

“We are currently working on a bill to be submitted to cabinet in order to get the approval of the TVET strategy of the country. In line with that, government will ensure that only managers with technical university backgrounds are put in charge of technical education”

She said government had put in place important initiatives to ensure that the decision to focus TVET did not become the lip service that had been paid over the years; and also, “for the “one factory per District’ agenda to excel, government will reinforce and increase access to technical and vocational institutions.”

Mrs. Ekuful said education was a catalyst to attaining sustainable development and consequently important and appropriate investment must be made towards boosting the skills of the workforce.

She said for Ghana to become a high-income country, it was vital to train and make available to industry highly skilled human resources to serve as the strategic drivers of the economy.

She expressed government’s commitment to continue to invest in skills training and apprenticeship under its industrialisation agenda to create jobs especially for the youth and to address the numerous challenges confronting the educational sector.

Professor Ralph Kinston Asabere, the Chairman of ATU Governing Council appealed to government to revive the Wifi Project on campus initiated by the National Information and Technology Agency to enhance quality education amongst the student populace.

He appealed to the Minister of Education and other stakeholders, the GETFund and COTVET, to intervene with funding for the expansion of existing structures and logistics; and educational regulators, grant approval to run more programmes for varied choices of students to complement the Free SHS Policy.

Professor Edmund Ameko, the Acting Vice Chancellor in his report, outlined a number of projects that are ongoing at the University including the completion of a 92-room office complex for teaching staff; the acquisition of two 350 KVA standby generators; and the refurbishment of the Language Laboratory to offer proficiency courses in French, Spanish, German, Chinese and English.

He also added that Management was in the process of submitting a proposal through the Academic Board to Council for construction of a four-storey Amphitheatre complex to house 8 amphitheaters with a sitting capacity of 200 – 300.

Prof Ameko advised the graduands to continue to learn and improve themselves and brighten their future.